The “Nutty As Hell” Short Films From Aucklander Sam Kristofski

The team at Show Me Shorts have recruited artist and filmmaker Joseph Jowitt to select and comment on this month’s shorts. Here he presents three surreal short films from the world of Aucklander Sam Kristofski. They’re idiosyncratic, nutty as hell, and a heck of a lot of fun. Perfect for the coming holiday season.

The year is 1989. You are sixteen years old, obsessed with arcade games, hopped up on bucket bongs, K Bars and cheap off-brand cola. You fall asleep with a head full of B-grade action films and Street Fighter. This is your dream. Welcome to the world of Sam Kristofski.

I came across these shorts online and couldn’t quite understand what I was seeing. With B-grade VHS aesthetics, Baddies is a heady stew of arcade action games steeped in a sort of deranged teenage logic. The arcade games that these films reference are a specific game genre, which feature very little puzzle solving, skills of strategy or particularly complex thinking. They’re frantic, addictive and rely on reflexes and hardcore button pushing.

Watching them through the lens of this reality allows you to understand the inherent bonehead logic that connects them. The protagonists have all the physicality of robotic and wooden Tekken characters, and they speak in a demented monosyllabic lexicon of video game dialect.

The arcade action game plots are truncated affairs that set up the next fight scene – where the ‘baddies’ battle their various foes with fists, arrows and laser guns. Baddies want two things: to understand how ‘Bad’ the other characters are, and most stridently: to get more diamonds.

These films are the ultimate product of growing up in the early ’80s, a postmodern chunder-melange of arcade graphics and blockbuster anti-hero worship.

Transit Baddies 7

My first encounter with Baddies, was Transit Baddies 7, which following Kristofski’s arcade action game logic is the third in his trilogy. Following an eerily-accurate ’80s trailer for the film Sand Bases, the ‘plot’ gets underway.

Set near Sydney Airport in 2001, some kind of shadowy handover gets interrupted by a man claiming to be a ‘pilon’ (pilot). Be prepared for the mispronounced dialect as the pilot is questioned on his flight history, “how many flies you got?” and his authenticity as a ‘Baddie’, “How many cashes you got?”. Brilliantly bad fight scenes ensue when it turns out he is not who he appears.

Nottingham Baddies 4

This film introduces the Baddies in a forest setting, with random opening titles detailing snack suppliers. They encounter Robin Hood who has supposedly switched allegiances – ‘I’m a Baddie now’. After the usual careful interrogation a battle ensues, with some arrow FX that Kevin Costner would be impressed with. This one is R18 as it features drugs and alcohol.

Baddies vs Prenator vs Art vs Science 3

The most recent installment is the most complex and developed film in the series. Actually a music video for the Australian dance band Art vs Science, the Baddies clash with a whole host of new adversaries.

From the outset it’s a batty self-referential, inter-textual ride with a genuine heat vision camera introducing the ‘Prenator’. Next they’re pitched against the ‘Goodies’, their doppelgängers clad in white. The ensuing helicopter action scene is ingenious low-budget insanity, made even crazier when ‘Siderman’ sabotages it.

It’s a cacophony of references bundled together with brilliant ’80s computer game graphics, and the mangled dialogue you expect from the series. Idiosyncratic, nutty as hell, and a heck of a lot of fun.